The Best Part....
Topic: all around ireland
By the time I put pen to paper at Kilmavue cove, my pants were too drenched to care about however wet the grass might be. Johannes and Spencer decided to wade in the ocean, Juli and Gretchen to play the doting girlfriends. Sean looks off across the Atlantic, at something I can only guess about.
Home perhaps? I doubt it, wrong direction. Perhaps the girl; I don't know her name but the fact that she exists has come up a couple time.
California lies somewhere in that direction. Hard not to think about it, when looking west. This has been a hard email to write, so much has happened, which has lead to there being so much to write about, which has delayed writing, which means more has happened. Standard feedback I guess.
***
Once again, the long arm of politics grabbed me from behind, and drug me kicking and screaming into the foray. Or would have if I hadn't gone willingly. A good friend of mine, and Edna Duffy ran for Deputy Pres, and asked for my help, which he would have gotten anyway. But, remember that girl I hit on who's dad was the former TD? I'll admit that her running for Education officer
Student Politics have a divisiveness second only too a Democratic primary in Santa Cruz County. And I have an extra problem. I don't really care. I don't take politics personally, I would never not be friends with someone simply because of ideology, though I admit I would have prejudices against them. Helping people is the important thing. Over here in Ireland means I end up with friends on both sides.
I get stuck in a tug-a-war between the L&H, the bastion of Fina Foil, and Labour, the big leftist party.
The best way to demonstrate this will require some paper, a pen and a ruler.
Begin by bisecting the paper length wise, and denote the middle of the line with C. Congratulations, you have just drawn a political spectrum.
Put John Kerry a smidge to the left of center, John Laird a good inch and half, Dillo about an inch left of Laird. Put Looney there as well, but make him big and scary and loud (think Thing from Fantastic Four, only a fairly good looking chap), and more of a campaign manager type than Dillo, who's simply the man, I guess impart because he doesn't need to be big and scary. Put Marx and Weber and all them a quarter of an inch further than to the left than that.
For the L&H, put most of them right at the center, maybe a smudge to the right. Barry, and Frank maybe a quarter of an inch to the right. But to get to Richard Waghorn, well, go to the far right end of the paper, there's Bush (many would think that Rummy, Rove, and Cheney should be marked here, but this is a political spectrum were drawing, not a spectrum of evil). Take out two more sheets of paper and extend your political spectrum. Tape to the end of those a roll of butcher paper. Keep drawing. If you just started that line with a full Uniball pen, and just kept drawing to the right until you ran out of ink, you'd be just short of Richard.
He's sort of a legend in Irish student politics. I have friends who came from transferred from other Irish universities, and they had heard of him back home. Since he is fundamentally a gentleman Richard gets respect from everyone. Even Looney, who is about taking sides on things as much as anyone I've met.
So the sides end up like this: We got the left, or Joanne, Duffy, and Jane, vrs. James Carrol, Dave Curran, and Sean Smythe.
Felt good to get back to basics. Back to putting up signs and canvasing, and the real foot work that makes up a campaign.
But then, I end up hanging out with the L&H and they talk about Duffy or Joanne, not realizing that I work on his campaign, and I am left in kind of an awkward position.
Joanne was a weak candidate, and I'm not surprised that she lost. Not particularly surprised that Duffy lost, he didn't want it bad enough. Then, I didn't want it bad enough.
Jane did win, which I also called. She did want it. Jane is one of the more impressive people I've met over here. I'm actually most impressed by three people: her, Dillo, and Frank.
Frank is obviously brilliant, and charismatic. I remember him all starry-eyed meeting Bill Owens, and saying that the Governor was ?extremely charming? and thinking that he was a social misfit next to Frank. Slick, and blatantly un-genuine next to Frank.
Dillo I think impresses everyone because he simply is the man. Three years ago, after about twenty years of Fina Foil or Fina Gael controlling the SU presidency, Dillo, as a first year, managed not only to beat them finally, but also two other leftist candidates. The man exudes conviction, and pulls people to him.
Jane seems to reserve apart of herself from what is going on. She approaches life like a rubrics cube, fully aware that what one does over here, affects over there. That's not to say that she is not quick to laugh, she is, or never lets herself have a good time, she does constantly. She just always acts properly, listens more than she speaks, like someone who's grown up with a parent in the public life. The fact that she is hot, doesn't detract from her impressiveness.
***
The continentals shriek at the size of the waves. They are perhaps at most a foot and a half.
From reading that paragraph, I could see how of you could think that I like her a good deal. I don't. I mean find her attractive, most straight men do. I like her enough for a kiss on the check to drive me a little nuts (OBTW, I think that the European custom of kissing on the cheek is simply to confound American men) and to hit on her. But that's not really here or there. The funny thing about being rejected by as many women as I have: if I ever do become rich and famous how many girls are going to kick themselves? But I haven't met anyone in Ireland that throws my heart of a beat.
Not like my friends here. I don't know how much to say about their various going ons, but they have become so much of my life here, especially on this trip since I can't get away from them.
Juli has jumped on Johannes' back now, and they dance around on the sand and wade into the surf.
I remember a Swiss girl described Juli and Johannes as beauty and the beast. I think Juli would be more offend by this description, Johannes proudly declares himself a beast on a regular basis. And he is, if being beastly means blatantly aggressive and generally brutish. His favorite animal is the sloth because of their helplessness. Juli fits the description of the beauty, though in most situations I would probably say girly. Into pink scarves, and angels. She even wears a ring with that painting of the ho-hum seraphs staring abjectly up to the clouds.
***
My grandparents came to visit me in Ireland. Impressive for Grandpops at 78, and Gramere who has been going on 45 for as long as I can remember. For the record, we call her Gramere because grandma makes her feel old. Not that she should have, I remember when I was eight having to tell checkers that she wasn't my mother. Grandpops looks like an endearing grandfather, always has in my memory.
Elderly people are hard to travel with. My Gramere once joked that they were probably as hard as toddlers to travel with. I bit my tongue, but wanted to say that toddlers would be much easier, they don't have their own ideas.
On the first day, Grandpops said to me ?Don't get old.?
?Die young then??
He laughed, ?Not a lot of good options there.?
We did all those touristy things in Dublin, all those things I can't afford on a student budget. Ate well, drank well, saw plays. It was a good time, in spite of having to sit down every hour.
You aren't allowed to smoke inside bars in Ireland. Their (Grandpop's) favorite pub then ended up being the Temple Bar, not to be confused with Temple Bar, on account of it having the nicest beer garden in all of Ireland where Grandpops could smoke his cigars. A beer garden is an open courtyard, usually with heaters and umbrellas to make it comfortable.
We spent St. Paddy's with my friends watching the parade, which was a plethora of mischief, madness, and mayhem in shooting confetti, inflatable floats, and marching bag pipes. And the color: vibrant magenta zingers chased electric blue goblins all the way up Dames street to Christ Church, while violet storks danced with giant orange bumble bees. I think only Dr. Seuss could have truly appreciated it, with a smile and the proper rhyme.
The holiday is really for children and it showed. Kids packed the streets. Ten year old goons shouted at girls to ?take of there tops? which amused Chris, Spencer, and I to know end while little ones managed to wedge in between my grandparents. Only other highlights of the day were Chris, Spencer, and I managing to talk ourselves out of being arrested by the Gardi for drinking in public and the grandparents buying a round for everyone in our group.
***
History is seldom a happy thing.
Kilmainham Gaol, or Jail in English, where we went the next day seems pushed off to the side of Dublin, hidden behind some re-development project. Probably the most historical site in the country, being Ireland's major prison for over 120 years, and home to more suffering than any of us back in California seem capable of imagining.
The gray limestone walls suck up all the color about the place. I only know that trees grew next to it because they were mentioned in one of the presentations. They suck up all the heat as well; the inside of the prison is always about 4 or 5 degrees C colder than outside. Above one of the doors a woman inmate scratched in a verse of Patrick Pearse to catch the shadow of a tossed up light bulb.
By lonely prison wall,
I heard a young girl calling,
Micheal they are taking you away
for you stole Trevelyn's corn
so the young might see the morn,
now the prison ship lies waiting in the bay.
I don't have the space to write every story from Kilmainham here, but I'll give the most important ones.
During the Famine, about a million people starved across the whole of Ireland. Many of the poor decided that it would better to be in prison, at least they would get a meal a day instead of failing with their mouths dyed green from trying to eat the grass. Kilmainham became the home of over 10,000 people, men, women, and children, many having to sleep on the slab floors of the hallway, not even in a cell. When someone died, the guards lifted some stones from the children exercise yard, and buried the corpse in quick lime so it would decompose faster and make room for the next dead. Thanks to the quick lime, no one has any idea how many people were buried under that slab.
Like I said, history is seldom a happy thing.
In 1916 this hall housed many of the leaders of the Easter Uprising. 14 were executed in the stone breakers yard.
Patrick Pearse, viewed as the leader of the Uprising, was the first to be executed by firing squad. He comforted his mother by saying that his brother should escape execution. His brother was executed the next day.
Joesph Plunkett had his last wish, to be married to his girlfriend Grace. He was handcuffed most of the ceremony. The only words he said to her, ?I do.? It is believed she waited outside the Prison walls for hear the gun shots. According to ballad tradition, she stayed faithful for the rest of her days.
James Connolly had been mortally wounded during the uprising, and had not been held in the prison but in a near by hospital. They brought him by ambulance to the Kilmainham Jail, they took him by stretcher into. Since he could not stand, and so they could execute him, they strapped him to a chair. He forgave the firing squad just before they shot.
During the civil war, the yard same yard was the site of execution for those illegally carrying fire arms. One young Republican (no more than 21) wrote in his final letter:
... Mother I would just love one look at all the faces at home, your's above all, but seemly that is denied me. I get everything I want now which as you know is the (two words scrawled out) Mother, my heart grieves for one look at your dear face... But Mother don't fret, for remember I am happy. The priest here... Oh mother if I could only see you just again. Don't fret Mother Because I am Happy. To my Mother whom I dearly love. Goodbye Goodbye Goodbye We will meet in heaven please God. Mother I am to die for Ireland God (blurred) you in ordeal Mother
Like I said, history is seldom a happy thing.
Dying for freedom seems out of vogue these days, which a lot of the great thinkers of the past would find regrettable. Hegel himself theorized that history advanced through ?greater than life? epiphanies that allowed one power over the other.
I don't know when it happened, but I know it happened before Kubrick filmed the Joker giving voice to those villagers' bodies soaking in quick lime. But I doubt it happened during Vietnam, my guess would be Korea, the forgotten one. For the first time in Western war there seemed no definite win, no definite end, no definite point. So, we just tried to forget it. War wasn't glorious, so we ignored it as much as possible, we threw a different sort of quick lime on it. Hell, if it wasn't for M*A*S*H* reruns and Team America most under 16 wouldn't even know Korea existed. That's just a guess though, and a bad one.
But like I said, history is seldom happy.
By lonely prison wall,
I heard a young man calling,
nothing matters Mary if your free,
Against the famine and the crown
I rebelled they ran me down
now you must raise our child with dignity
***
But life often is.
I don't know if I can impart to you what love seems to be like at this time and place of the globe where the cusp of spring just pushed up through the earth in yellow daffodils. Nice to see the color, God knows I am sick of green.
Gretchen and Spencer have started to wade into the blue surf. Gretchen has become a good friend of mine, (I want both Danny and Jeff to note this, I can be friendly with my friend's girlfriend) which is good since she practically lives at our flat. And the feminine influence has lead to a cleaner flat and a more relaxed atmosphere in general. Having someone to smack Spencer after his ant-TV diatribes, and a target for his ?butt? dance other than me, also good. They are one of those disgusting couples though, always playing guitar and investigating each others tonsils.
The cook together a lot, which seems more common in Europe than the US. I don't know why; food is a very important aspect of human life, and something to be shared. At least they aren't too loud.
***
Celebrated my 21st birthday with the usual fanfare. Highlights: Grandpops got into a drinking match with Cyrus. Spencer and Gretchen got me a boob cake. Managed to get a few Irish people over which is always a hard thing. Some from Labour, some from L&H. Introduced them to the glory that is ?Kings.? I think everybody from the US should know the game, or know it as ?Kings Kup,? but it's one of the few bits of culture that haven't been exported to the Europe. And they say we have no culture.
Being now 21, my grandparents and I rented a car to head up to the north west coast. Driving on the left side of the road isn't as hard as most would guess. It presents two difficulties: Turning, more exactly going into the correct lane when turning, and figuring out where the left side of the car is.
Sligo, home to Yeats and Seamus Heaney, both noble prize winning poets. Also, legendary home to Queen Mab of Arthurian fame. The town itself has a lot of grit to its circa late Victorian streets that like every other Irish town embraces sides of a tidal river.
After I dropped off my grandparents for their tour around the rest of Ireland, I figured I couldn't let the car go to waste. I grabbed Chris and Spencer and Gretchen, none of whom took a particular effort to tear away from whatever they were doing, and final did what one of those things I had wanted to do since I got here in September. The drive though the Wicklow mountains was intensely narrow, culminating in the last mile being squashed into half a lane because of all the people who parked on the side of the road, too lazy to walk the extra 500 yards to the remote parking lot. Touch and go for awhile when this Mercedes and I met head on.
The man, who is now known as St. Kevin, first settled into the place at the end of the fifth century, with the purpose of getting away from human society to commune with God. After about seven years of having only the birds and beasts and God to talk to, people start to think he had a good idea and built a monastery around the hermit. Hard to miss the irony.
The place is now called Glendalough, or the glen of two lakes. I don't know, maybe it's the mist cling to the oaks, or how the setting sun bends around the passes to just barely glisten the cresting ripples of the lakes, or the stone towers older than the concept of a world without the Roman Empire, but it's the kind of place you want to get out a net to chase after fairies, or at least find a nice Lepurcan to invite over for a nice cup of cha. I hate to repeat every other description of the place, but it does require the word, magical.
Chris and I had to split up from Spencer and Gretchen after about five minutes. Too much shared spit for our tastes. Ah, Chris, you're gone as I write this. I didn't always treat you with the utmost fairness, and rightfully so quite often. But Dublin, or my life in, has diminished since last week.
The monastery grounds consist of a stone tower, and two churches dating back to the 11th century, 500 years after St. Kevin started his hermitage. It still serves as a cemetery. Most of the gravestones you can make out date back to the 1830's, and you can't make out the majority of them, making me guess that they are probably considerably older. Most are family plots, the stones reading something like ?my grandfather was buried here in 1825, my father and mother in 1850, and me in 1893.?
Chris and I spend the day wandering the trails and checking out the various ruins and waterfalls that fed the lakes, to meet up later with Spencer and Gretchen for ice cream and yell at sheep.
***
Juli suns herself on a limestone shelf just above the water, appreciating the fact that there she can finally feel some warmth. Spencer and Johannes bicker up to their calves in the surf as Gretchen steals a camera from the pack and takes a picture. I stretch my toes in the grass, let some of the longer blades of grass almost floss the spaces between.
Sean is a funny man. When I asked him what he wanted to do with his economics degree, he replied ?write sitcoms.? Makes more sense. He jokes a lot, and yet can pull a heart warming subtly at times. Warned Johannes not to sit on Oscar Wilde's statue's lap on the account it might excite the author. (Sorry for the gay joke Allison.)
But right now he's quiet, still just staring across the sea at what only he knows.
***
I've talked about the Troubles the last three emails, guess I should talk about it in this one. But I think I've been a little one sided in my treatment of the conflict. I haven't really talked about Unionists at all.
There are two main Unionist parties: the Ulster Unionist Part (UUP) lead by David Trimble, and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lead by Dr. Ian Paisley. During the negotiation of what everybody but Unionists call the Good Friday Agreement (they call it the Belfast Agreement) the DUP walked out of negotiations for the stated reason that Sinn Fein, which they call IRA/Sinn Fein, was being included as well. Officially, they refused to negotiate with a party they viewed to be terrorists. Many believe that unofficially the DUP thought that the negotiations were going to fail anyway, and they could use that failure to their electoral advantage.
Since devolved government collapsed, like Sinn Fein, their extremist counter parts in Nationalist community, the DUP support continues to rise. They over took the UUP in the last election, making them the largest party in Northern Ireland, and appears set to increase that lead come May 5th. My guess is that Sinn Fein will do similarly well, though the McCartney murder and scandal may have slowed their momentum a bit.
I don't think I can impart how extreme the DUP actually are. Comparing Sinn Fein to them is like comparing, well, anyone to Tom Delay. But I did have a chance to interview Dr. Ian Paisley, and he had this to say:
Me: Dr. Paisley, thank you for having me over for tea, and letting me ask a couple of questions. What do think we need to see from the IRA?
Dr. Paisley: The IRA needs to be humiliated. And they need to wear their sackcloth and ashes, not in a back room but openly. And we have no apology to make for the stand we
are taking. (North Antrim DUP Association annual dinner, Saturday 27 November 2004)
Me: Fair play I guess. What do you think of Gerry Adams?
Dr Paisley: He is a terrorist! (Continues on a diatribe that uses the terms ?Gerry Adams? and ?terrorist? like ?Freedom? and ?Liberty? in a Bush Inaugural. RTE News, when negotiations on decommissioning broke down in Dec.)
Me: OK... Good to know you have such strong feelings on the issue. So what do you think of the EU?
Dr. Paisley: Developments in Europe are not planned to end with merely economic and political union. The envisaged European superstate plans to go even further. Although ? as is characteristic of the planners' tactics ? no formal mention of the next step has yet been made or foreshadowed in any treaty.
For the past three quarters of a century the Popes have laid careful plans for this organization which is aimed at reclaiming all those regions of Europe which were wrested from Rome through the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth, and, more recently, the communisation of Eastern Europe.
Rome has always had her eye on controlling Europe, and for years the Vatican has been given the privilege of being the leader and president of the Diplomatic Corps of all the member governments of the European Union.
The facts are that the young children of Europe are not safe physically or morally when they are within reach of the Pope?s pedophile priests. (www.ianpaisely.org)
Me: OK... Well, I guess they just elected as Pope a former member of the Hitler Youth and the guy who ran the Holy Office which started out as the Inquisition, but that hardly seems grounds for a conspiracy theory. A German guy standing on a balcony before thousands of cheering people is nothing to fear. Ehm... One last question. Dr. Paisley, is it true you aren't actually a doctor?
Paisley: Yarrr.... (the Sea Captain from The Simpsons actually. Mr. Paisley has an honorary doctorate from unaccredited Bob Jones University)
I guess it's nice to know that religious crazies fuck up places other than the US and the Middle East.
***
About 13 miles east of the cove where I sit, the Claddagh district of Galway lies on the edge of Connemara. Connemara is a strange place indeed, where they have the most ancient of places and the weirdest of people. The land itself is not particularly inviting, the earth is brown with the trodden down dead grass, and rocks litter the place. But under the blue sky, little thatched roof cottages and the smell of burning peat invite you in.
Claddagh hardly survives anymore, it used to be a big fishing area right on the edge of Connemara, but didn't survive the modernizing of the 20th century. But everywhere in Ireland, and beyond that, people wear its ring. Nothing special I guess, just two tender hands grasping a crowned heart: friendship, loyalty, and love. If the point of the heart points out to the world, the wear is available, if the point is to one's own heart, then the wearer is already taken.
We drove for about an hour before through this desolation before getting on the island's ferry. I heard the strangest accent on the boat, LA basin. I don't notice Irish accents anymore, except for the occasional Corky, but I've been gone away from California for long enough that LA sticks out but it is kind of pretty when you aren't used to it.
It didn't take long to figure our that Inishmore is not the most hospitable place in Ireland. Unlike the rest of the country it isn't green, the only plants here are a few random shrubs and what grass can find enough dirt in the cracks between the limestone. There are about 1200 people on the island, living off grazing animals and tourism. And lots of ancient stone walls, like a net all haphazard like. The original settlers first built them about three thousand years ago not for defense, but to a) to regulate their animals grazing, b) to retain what little soil they had, and c) to simply get rid of some of the rock. As far as I can tell, c) was a complete failure.
After checking to our hostel. We rented bikes and headed off towards Dun Aengus. About that time it started to rain. Worst weather in Ireland since Leyna came to visit. Rained all fecking day. Shite.
Our first contact of with the locals ended up with us getting chased off the road by a man carrying a twisted staff who insisted on yelling at us in Irish for the first two minutes because we ?were frightening the cattle.? He started in Irish because the island is a Galetach, a place where in an effort to preserve the language, Irish is spoken as a daily language.
It took about an hour, and lunch in a nice thatched roof coffee shop, to get to Dun Aengus. Dun Aengus, as I'm sure you are all wondering, is a ring fort built 2800 years ago to defend the island. Ring forts were a common defense structure of the late Bronze age British-Irish Isles, Dun Aengus in fact is the largest and most impressive of three on Inishmore. They typically consist of a large ringed wall of stacked stone surrounded by a larger ring of stacked stone, and then another ring of debris to slow attackers and expose them to defending archers. Simple really, but effective if siege equipment hasn't been invented yet, and the opposing army is about a hundred guys.
What makes Dun Aengus so impressive and unique, besides its great condition, is that the builders designed it as a half ring. Guess they figure that 150 foot sheer drop over the ocean was enough defense.
Our whole hike up there, it rained though it decide to stop about when we got to the top. The whole lee side of the island is like this. Sheer drop into the pounding Atlantic. There isn't any kind of fence, or even rail to stop you from getting blown off by the hollowing wind, and apparently tourists occasionally do. But the view is incredible, you can see the whole island, and miles of ocean in the distance.
You don't really know people until you've been with them wet and tired. Juli won't stop complaining at this point, and Johannes spends half the time were up at the fort making fun of some Austrians that up there. Sean stops cracking jokes, and just gets quiet. Spencer kicks rocks and tries to freak out Gretchen by getting as close as he can to the cliff. Gretchen doesn't find it amusing. I just laugh at them all, and then shut up quickly when they start with the funny looks.
About half way back down, the sun came out. Damn. It didn't really matter at that point, I might as well have been wearing we laundry. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring old monk cells, and watching the girls pet the horses. (What is up with girls and horses anyway?)
And then we got here. And I sat down and started writing all this, and that's where I started off about 10 pages ago.
It's been a whole month of watching some couple, either my grandparents, or Spencer and Gretchen, or Juli and Johannes, so it seemed natural to write about relationships. Thinking about working relationships, I can't really help but thinking what my grandparents taught me, among all the other things crucial things they taught me: that relationships aren't isolated. All human things have to be understood in community.
My grandparents have always had a large community of people around them, and I think that they've always had an understanding that group was an important aspect of their relationship. From giant parties with pintas and hot buttered rum, to golf and PTA and clubs of all kinds, what they seemed to understand is that their isn't a human relationship that can be boiled down to two people, that those parties and golf and clubs were important.
I guess since I've never been in a position to build a life with someone (which is as it should be at 21) I can't really understand completely why. I'm sure to vent and share is part of it, but I feel it isn't the whole thing.
Doesn't mean that they don't fight still. I remember I had to ?invite? my grandfather to a dinner with my and my grandmother after a day of shopping because she was mad at him, and he had no idea why. But I think that's heartening, that after 52 years of marriage you can still have something to learn about a person.
Now Johannes has gone home to Bavaria and necessarily broken up with Juli. Spencer and Gretchen are both so busy with exams they seem to be starting to move on. I doubt that the six of us on that beach will ever be together again as a whole.
I realize--As I watch Juli and Johannes wrestle against in the sand, Gretchen's and Spencer's embrace silhouetted against the crashing surf, and Sean gaze across at the sea at only he knows what, and I think back to all of you in California-- You know, I may not have that best part, the being in love part, but I got some of the greatest friends in the world, and that's more than enough for me.
Time to sumo.
Miss you all terribly,
John
Posted by eatguineapigs0
at 10:12 PM BST
Updated: Saturday, 21 May 2005 3:35 PM BST
